Highlights from the Deseret News, Aug. 20, 2011

At the Deseret News we strive to provide you with special insight into issues that you care about. Like you, we wrestle with ways to filter the relentless deluge of information for what is of real value. With that in mind, we offer the following digest of stories we think are worth your time.

Content highlights reflect six core values: Care for the Poor; Excellence in Education; Faith in the Community; Family Life; Financial Responsibility; and Values in the Media.

Selected from recent editions of the Deseret News, these stories and columns cover topics relevant to our areas of editorial emphasis. We hope you find that they offer insight and enlightenment in a world flooded with news and information that we believe you will only find in the Deseret News.

Darlene Eckles didn't know her brother was running a drug ring out of her house - she was just trying to help him out by letting him live with her temporarily. But his crimes still landed her in prison. Now Darlene and more than 12,000 people in federal prison for crack-related crimes are eligible to get out early as a result of a new law. Eighty-two percent of those imprisoned on crack cocaine charges are African Americans.

Some criminal justice experts point to socioeconomic problems like poverty, low education and the increase of fatherless homes as reasons for the high rate of minority incarceration. Others argue the system is riddled with racism, from the way police officers track crime to the way judges and juries apply sentences.

The conviction of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs raises what could appear to be difficult questions about the historical connection between modern polygamists and modern mainstream Mormonism.

But columnist Nathan B. Oman points out that modern Mormons and modern polygamists have been on separate historical trajectories for more than a century — a much longer time period than the history they share. He makes the case that it was FLDS polygamists, not the mainstream church, that abandoned key elements of the Mormon tradition, including openness and engagement with the outside world.